A Just Farewell by Brian S. Wheeler Read Free Book Online

blessing and permission as the most terrible
of all blasphemies.
     
    Abraham trembled. His cockroach friend
wiggled in his jacket pocket, and Abraham feared he might fidget or
chuckle just as the clerics glowered from atop their scaffolding.
Abraham didn’t dare lift his face, for he felt certain that the
clerics were looking directly at him. He hadn’t prayed to the Maker
before he had painted the shells of his cockroach friends. He had
thought such artistry was below the Maker’s regard. Abraham choked
as he felt his friend crawl to the cusp of his inner pocket. He
didn’t dare reach into his jacket to remove his friend, lest his
guilt of applying color to the creator’s creatures without first
praying for the Maker’s permission become apparent.
     
    Several clerics sporting the short beards
that marked them as the youngest of the religious leaders pushed a
man and woman to the front of the scaffold. The clerics kicked
several times at the man’s legs, and their captor fell face-first
onto the ground as his bound wrists prevented him from bracing for
impact. A woman dressed in the black robes and dark glasses worn by
every woman of the tribe sobbed each time the man fell, and the
clerics dragged her feet across the dirt each time she reached out
to help the fallen man up from the ground. The relief Abraham felt
when he saw it was not his crime that attracted the clerics’
attention shamed him, for his heart ached to watch that man stumble
and that woman sob.
     
    The man stumbled closer to the clerics’
tower, and Abraham recognized him as Paul, the tribe’s butcher.
Abraham had recently accompanied his father on one of Rahbin’s
trips to Pauls’ shop to deliver a goat so that it could be
butchered and dressed for a family meal in celebration of Ishmael’s
passage into manhood. The cool air of Paul’s home, where the
carcasses of so many village animals hung from the earthen ceiling,
had amazed Abraham, and he had thought that Paul must’ve been
especially blessed by the Maker if the divine creator gifted him
with such breezes to flow through his underground shop to help
preserve the animal meat Paul had not yet salted. Thus Abraham felt
puzzled as the clerics shoved Paul and his wife closer to the
tower, for he couldn’t understand why the butcher would offend the
Maker who so blessed his home and his profession.
     
    The head cleric frowned at the man and woman
dragged before him. “Neighbors, it hurts our hearts to have reason
to present Paul and Sarah to you as blasphemers. We have discovered
that Paul writes poetry intended to make love to Sarah, and thus he
commits two terrible affronts to our Maker. Let us remember that
Sarah is wed to the Maker, and that Paul is only a vessel our great
creator possesses whenever he chooses to plant life within Sarah’s
womb. Paul sought none of our clerics’ blessing when he composed
his verse, and so his words express his lust for Sarah rather than
the Maker’s love. Paul’s creation angers the Maker, and his poems
symbolize the adultery Paul and Sarah regularly, and knowingly,
committed against our creator. Paul, do you deny writing such
words?”
     
    One of the young clerics slapped Paul across
the face when the accused didn’t instantly answer. Stunned, the
accused butcher shook his head.
     
    The high cleric sighed. “And Sarah, do you
deny taking pleasure from Paul’s tainted creation? Do you deny
breaking your sacred wedding vow to your Maker and taking pleasure
from Paul’s touch?”
     
    The woman sobbed and shook her head.
     
    The high cleric nodded. “Paul and Sarah,
your selfishness has invited the great devil into our tribe at a
time when we must strengthen ourselves to carry our fight against
the unbelievers into the purgatory between our Earth and the
Maker’s heaven. You commit such affronts in a time when we cannot
afford mercy.”
     
    Abraham gasped when the largest of the
clerics surrounding Paul and Sarah withdrew a long, curved